A TOP Brussels politician has admitted the European Union risks disintegrating over the ongoing migrant crisis, as tensions between member states threaten to boil over.

Federica Mogherini admitted the EU could collapse over the migrant crisis

Federica Mogherini, the EU's foreign policy chief, warned that if national leaders failed to come up with a unified response to the largest mass migration of people since the Second World War, it could mark the beginning of the end for the 28-member bloc.

Speaking to the Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper in her native Italy, Ms Mogherini warned that without a joint agreement between EU member states "the crisis will get worse, with chain reactions from public opinion and national governments".

The heavyweight EU bureaucrat added that Brussels needed to be equipped with "instruments up to the challenge" but if these couldn't be found "there is the risk of disintegration".

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One million people - many of them refugees fleeing war-torn Syria or conflicts and persecution in other Middle Eastern and African countries - are expected to seek asylum in the EU this year.

Ms Moghernini's comments emerged on the same day that Hungary vowed to launch a legal challenge against an EU plan to impose mandatory quotas on member states in order to relocate migrants across the continent.

Amid the unprecedented influx of migrants into the EU this year, Hungary established a fence on its southern border with Croatia and Serbia.

Slovenia, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria and Austria have since suggested they will establish their own border fences, with the EU's border-free Schengen zone effectively collapsing under the strain of the migrant crisis.

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Hungary PM Viktor Orban has vowed to take legal action against the EU quota deal

There is the risk of disintegration

Federica Mogherini

Hungary's interior minister Karoly Kontrat said today: "We have protected our southern borders; now, however, Hungary is facing a threat from the West with the introduction of the mandatory quotas."

Mr Kontrat added that Hungary's government would use "all available remedial options under law" to derail the EU's quota deal.

Janos Lazar, the chief of staff to hardline Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, added: "Hungary does not want to accept any [migrants] who have been expelled.

"Our view is that they should be expelled to Greece."

The EU quota deal was imposed on member states last month after being forced through despite the opposition of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.

Slovakia has already vowed to take legal action against the deal, which will see EU countries share 120,000 people between them.

Britain opted-out of the agreement, having already committed to taking up to 20,000 Syrian refugees over the next five years.

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